in Marriage, Parenting, Health, and Faith

Month: August 2014

Starting on Memorial day, my family and I are going to be doing the Whole30. This weekend I have been finding recipes, shopping, and prepping our house. Our fridge is now filled with fruits and veggies:

I have been considering a Whole30 for weeks, but only just got up the courage to commit. I put it out there on Facebook to see if anyone wanted to join me and to help hold myself accountable. My main hesitation, is, and always has been, that I love food. Sometimes a little too much, as I have written about before. I am hoping that a Whole30 can help me with my food cravings but I don’t plan on suffering through the next month, I still want to enjoy what I am eating. My favorite rule of Whole30 is: “Do not try to re-create baked goods, junk foods, or treats with ‘approved’ ingredients.” This isn’t a month of limping along, surviving on “healthy” imitations of my favorite food, it’s separating ties with those foods for a month and focusing on healthy, clean food that is good for my body. At least, that is my hope.

I want sugar to loosen its hold on my body and mind. I want to be stronger than my cravings. I want to have more energy, feel happier, and all the other benefits I have been reading about from those who have successfully finished a Whole30. Bring it on September! I am ready!

I have participated in a lot of different sports and activities; tap dance, ballet, gymnastics, soccer, tennis, swimming, water polo, ultimate frisbee and aerobics–I love a group/team atmosphere. That’s probably why working out, alone, in a gym just wasn’t working for me. I was hesitant to try CrossFit, not because I thought I wouldn’t like it, but because I was pretty sure I would like it, and it’s a lot more expensive than a gym membership. The truth is, CrossFit is worth every penny. I am addicted to CrossFit! Heres why:

1. No Planning Involved: I just show up and work hard.

2. Constant Variety: There are a few WODs we come back to, but for the most part everyday is different than the last. I find the constant change motivating. I never know what to expect, so I don’t dread it.

3. Very Scaleable: I have a long way to go in my fitness journey, yet I can come and do the same workout as everyone else–I just have to adjust some things. And it is so exciting when I get stronger and have to scale less and less.

4. It’s My Break: I get to leave the kids for and hour and a half and focus on me. That little break makes the rest of the 23.5 hours of the day so much more enjoyable.

5. I Feel Strong: During most WODs I reach a wall and feel like quitting, but then I push through and it feels amazing when I finish. This mindset has been seeping into other aspects of my day. When something gets unbearable, I remind myself that I can do hard things.

6. CrossFit is a Family: Everything is measured and tracked, which seems like it would lend itself to being all about the individual, but in my experience, it’s the complete opposite. I feel like part of a family. One person’s success or PR is celebrated by all. The camaraderie keeps me coming back, week after week.

Last January, I had a repeat C-Section (In a perfect world, I would have had natural births, but I couldn’t and thats ok). My first recovery was a breeze. That’s the recurring theme of my parenting with my first. Easy. I call my first daughter, Penny, my angel baby. She was too good, too easy.

I was so unprepared for my second. Eloise is the sweetest baby, sweet, but not easy. Not simple. Such was my postpartum recovery my second time around. It hurt more, I needed my meds more, and I had much more responsibility. Andrew stayed home with Penny most of the time so I started feeling alone in the hospital. I went home a day earlier so I could be home with Penny.

Help was offered to me by my friends, my parents, my sisters and even my mother-in-law but I didn’t accept enough of it. It is so hard to admit I need it. Andrew couldn’t afford to take unpaid leave and he only had a little paid time off. So I powered through, and that was the wrong thing to do. It’s wrong, because with a newborn and a toddler life doesn’t get easy and normal again for a long time. For me it took months, sleep deprived nights, Crossfit, and a move across the country before I started feeling normal again.

All of the things people warned me about with my first, like how sleep deprived I would be, how hard a baby was on a marriage, how much I would need time to myself, how unpredictable babies can be, how rough sleep training is–none of it was applicable until my second and I was so, so unprepared.

Here is my list of things I would do differently, things I plan to do the next time I have a baby:

1. Have my husband stay in the hospital with me overnight. The nurses were helpful, but I really needed Andrew, especially during the middle of the night nursing. I overextended myself trying to get Eloise set up in the hospital bed to nurse, and with a very sore stomach this was a bad idea.

2. Have my husband take at least a week off of work (better yet, two weeks!) This might mean we have to take unpaid time off, Andrew’s current job gives 2 weeks paid time off to dads, but his previous job only offered unpaid leave. It would have been worth it to save some extra money so that wouldn’t be a burden.

3. Don’t go home early. My first night home was terrible. I couldn’t lie flat in bed without hurting my stomach, and I missed the hospital bed. I ended up sleeping in a recliner in the living room and it was the worst nights sleep I have ever had.

4. Rest. Stay in bed. I would take the week or two while my husband was home and just sleep and enjoy my new baby. Especially since I will be recovering from another C-section. Last time, I continuously overexerted myself and my body took a long time to heal. There was a lot of blood and my doctor kept advising me to slow down but I didn’t and it just made things worse.

5. Know my physical limits, and keep them. I felt like I had to prove how tough I was after my C-sections. I was up moving as soon as my epidural wore off, and from the start I refused a lot of help. Walking and moving after a C-section is important and good, but I pushed it further than I should have. I should have taken it slower.

6. Let people help me. Postpartum is not a time to be too proud to accept or ask for help.

Last month I wrote about how much I wanted some time away with my husband. That same day, Andrew came home and casually said, “I’ve been meaning to tell you, I worked it out with my parents for us to spend a night away.” I asked him if he read my latest blog post, he hadn’t. His timing was inspired.

This is the only picture of the two of us we got, and clearly we are terrible at taking selfies! We had a great night away! Andrew also took a week off while his family was here visiting so we got a whole week to slow down, be together, and parent out girls as a team. Our evenings were spent snuggling on the couch while watching a new show. One night we even hired a babysitter for the first time, and the adults in the family met up for a game night.

Andrew has since gone back to work and my normal routine has started up again. But something, something intangible has changed. We are happier. I appreciate Andrew more. My life has been rebooted and it’s running much smoother now.